This Day in History: Aug. 27

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This Day In History: August 27

Take a look at all of the important historic events that took place on August 27.

On this day, Aug. 27 ...

2008: Barack Obama is nominated for president by the Democratic National Convention in Denver.

Also on this day:

• 1859: Edwin L. Drake drills the first successful oil well in the United States, at Titusville, Pa.
• 1928: The Kellogg-Briand Pact is signed in Paris, outlawing war and providing for the peaceful settlement of disputes.
• 1945: U.S. troops begin landing in Japan after Japan's surrender in World War II.
• 1963: Author, journalist and civil rights activist W.E.B. Du Bois dies in Accra, Ghana, at age 95.
• 1967: Brian Epstein, manager of the Beatles, is found dead in his London flat from an accidental overdose of sleeping pills.
• 1989: The first U.S. commercial satellite rocket is launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla. — a Delta booster carrying a British communications satellite, the Marcopolo 1.

Mars as seen from orbit in the 1970s by NASA’s Viking mission.

• 2003: Mars makes its closest approach to Earth in 60,000 years.
• 2005: Coastal residents jam freeways and gas stations as they rush to get out of the way of Hurricane Katrina, which is headed toward New Orleans.
• 2006: A Comair CRJ-100 crashed after trying to take off from the wrong runway in Lexington, Ky., killing 49 people and leaving the co-pilot the sole survivor.

• 2007: NFL star Michael Vick pleads guilty to a federal dogfighting conspiracy charge.
• 2009: Jaycee Lee Dugard, kidnapped when she was 11, is reunited with her mother 18 years after her abduction in South Lake Tahoe, Calif.
• 2009: Alex Grass, founder of the Rite Aid drugstore chain, dies in Harrisburg, Pa.